Villages of Asturias, Spain: Peñanes

Approximately ten or twelve kilometers from Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias, Peñanes is another of those small rural communities, settled, since time immemorial, on the verge of a tremendously enigmatic, majestic and primordial place: the Monsacro.

Little or hardly anything remains, statistically speaking, of that hundred monasteries, which according to some sources, there were times in Asturias, which offers an approximate idea of ​​the heritage disaster that fell on a land where Nature still shines for its beauty and splendor.

In fact, when I visited Peñanes, I had the idea, not only of enjoying with the contemplation of one of the most picturesque towns or villages of Asturias, but also of chasing the elusive shadow of those mysterious 'fratres del Monsacro' - the knights Templars, seated on the top of the sacred mountain, by the pleasure of King Ferdinand II of León and his sister, Doña Urraca? - and of an enigmatic monastery, of ancient Benedictine origins, which, judging by some chronicles and traditions, must have settled primitive foundations somewhere nearby, under the charismatic name of San Juan de Peñanes.

If the Knights Templar, as expected, any presumed trace, would be little more than a mere exercise of speculation, the remains reused of old stones, with pious crosses of time, possibly recorded by anonymous hands in forgotten centuries even Through time, I confirmed the probable fate of the missing monastery.

In fact, Peñanes, if I have to be honest, hardly differentiates, at least anthropologically and socially speaking, from the hundreds of small communities, which, like tiny satellites, pour their hopes into adapting to the terrain, conserving, nevertheless, their ancestral modus vivendi, especially in the mountainous territories.

The neighbors of the surrounding villages say that the inhabitants of Peñanes have a reputation for being unfriendly and very quarrelsome, to the point of resolving their differences.

These are usually, mainly motivated by land issues and boundaries, common, if we are to be sincere, to any agricultural environment with a high sense of ownership.

Sense, on the other hand, which is marked by the genetic inheritance of some Asturian, Cantabrian and Basque ancestors whose outstanding attachment to the land and freedom, was sovereignly known by the Roman legions of the superb Augusto.

As a town, Peñanes conserves in unbeatable conditions, those rough but indestructible family mansions, where men and animals constituted and still constitute, an indivisible and unbreakable whole. That is to say: where an ancestral type of life develops, which has been inherited from parents to children for countless generations.

Another detail that makes a visit to Peñanes have an added attraction, is its privileged situation with respect to the spectacular Monte Sacro or Monsacro. In fact, and to the naked eye, one can see one of the two Romanesque hermitages that are on top of it: the hermitage of Santa María Magdalena.

Peñanes is located two or at most three kilometers from Santa Eulalia or Santolaya de Morcín, which holds the capital of the Council of Morcín.

In this regard, we must add one last piece of information, which I hope will at least be interesting: it was Morcín's warriors who accompanied, escorted and guided Don Pelayo when he fled Toledo, helping him to save the holy relics, which during centuries were hidden and closely watched on the top of the Monsacro.

[Written text in the Hospital de la Fuenfría, Cercedilla, Madrid, on Saturday, July 28, 2018]

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